The LaSalle Vipers broke a 1-1 tie in the second period, and then scored three more unanswered goals in the third to put away the first-place London Nationals on Saturday night in London.
The Nationals opened the scoring early in the first period, but Andrew Kotevski’s seventh goal of the season tied things up through the game’s opening 20 minutes. From there, the Vipers power-play took over over as they capitalized on two straight man-advantages. Noah Morneau gave them the lead at 12:59 of the middle frame, and Nic Pavia put the visitors up by two with his power-play goal coming just over three minutes into the third. Both of the goals came within the first 10 seconds of the power-play and both were set up by some beautiful passing.
LaSalle didn’t stop there and made sure things wouldn’t get interesting as Morneau potted his second of the night and Spencer Lecot scored for the third time in the past four games to close out the scoring in a 5-1 victory. Matthew Sbrocca won his fourth straight start by making 32 saves in the LaSalle net.
Registering their second three-game win streak in their past seven games, the Vipers have risen up the Western Conference standings. They now sit in fifth-place and are one point back of the fourth-place St. Marys Lincolns with two games in hand. They will have to be at their best however if they hope to capitalize on those games, as the Vipers will see the top three teams in the standings in the upcoming week.
The second-place Leamington Flyers will be in LaSalle for the first time this season on Wednesday night, and then the Nationals will no doubt be hungry for revenge when the two teams faceoff in London again on Saturday night. The week then culminates on Sunday afternoon where the Vipers will head to Chatham to take on the third-place Maroons.
